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UPDATE: Teacher on paid administrative leave

A Bluffton Middle School teacher is on paid administrative leave after being accused of making anti-Semitic comments last week to a seventh-grader.

Patricia Mulholland is also accused of manhandling the student. Mulholland turned herself in Monday morning to the Bluffton Police Department and was charged with third-degree assault and battery, and public disorderly conduct. According to the police report, Mulholland is accused of grabbing one of her students by the collar and pulling him out of his seat.

She said, “Come here, Jew” and then dragged him by the collar to a table. She then pushed him under the table and shouted, “This is what the Nazis do to Jews,” according to the police report.

Police spokesman Sgt. Joe Babkiewicz said Mulholland, a social studies teacher, said she was teaching the class about the Holocaust and was role playing.

Mulholland’s attorney Robert Ferguson said the teacher was just trying to show how random Nazi cruelty could be, and she was just trying to teach a lesson about the Holocaust and has a spotless 23-year teaching record.

“What was a demonstrative attempt to teach about World War II and the Holocaust has been taken to mean an anti-Semitic rant and it was nothing like that,” Ferguson said.

The 12-year-old student said he got up to sharpen a pencil last Wednesday when Mulholland grabbed him.

His parents decided to press charges.

Police would not identify the student and refused to say whether he was Jewish.

Beaufort County Schools Superintendent Dr. Valerie Truesdale said school counselors would go into classes to address concerns or questions about promoting a psychologically safe environment for students at Bluffton Middle School.

Jim Foster, spokesman for the Beaufort County School District, said Principal Dereck Rhoads received a report of misconduct in the classroom by a teacher from another teacher last Wednesday.

“The students started recording her on their phones because she was acting so strange,” he said.

She has 23 years of experience in the school district, and has been at the middle school since it opened two years ago, Foster said.

Rhoads immediately started an internal review into the allegations last Wednesday afternoon, and Mulholland was placed on administrative leave with pay on Thursday morning.

“The district is cooperating closely with the police investigation,” Foster said. “Once the investigation is complete, we’ll make a decision (regarding her employment).”

Foster said all reports of teacher misconduct are taken seriously by the district.

Mulholland has a court date this month. All charges are misdemeanors.

The Coastal Source — WJCL/WTGS — also contributed to this report. The Coastal Source is a news partner of Bluffton Today and the Savannah Morning News.